3 Effectance Motivation Examples

June 30, 2016

Conquering a tough task at hand can be a good motivation for people. This is true particularly when they can complete an obviously difficult job that seemed to be beyond their capabilities. In fact, it can motivate individuals to perform more or even a lot better compared with what they believe they will be able to achieve.

The term that is referred to this type of motivation is called effectance. Basically, it is not due to the motivation that comes externally nor internally. This is caused by the impact of overcoming a difficult task that was done well.

The fact that people would want to become recognized for their effectiveness is what this theory of effectance motivation is taken from. It is the desire of an individual to be effective, but it is also his or her intent to take pleasure out of that accomplishment. To learn more about this notion, here are some examples that can be referred to as effectance motivation.

1. Brings Out the Concept of Competition

Some people would want to be recognized as experts in their skill level by outperforming everybody else also trying to be effective in that area. For instance, a supervisor would want to receive recognition as an effective leader or a data entry operator would want to get recognized as a great typist. Due to this competitive nature, it will motivate people to perform more and accomplish more as a result. When one can accomplish this, effectance motivation will kick in.

2. Can Also Demotivate A Person

Competition can be a good motivator, but it can also demotivate a person. This will happen to people who are left behind by the one who outperformed them. For example, a worker got selected as employee of the month due to hard work, but others who got lower than that person felt defeated. So it will be an effective way to demotivate a person which causes him or her to give up. Moreover, these types of people may end up seeking changes or locking themselves inside a closet and hide for some time.

3. Takes Time for Development

Depending on the type of circumstances, effectance motivation can take some time to develop. It is like working out to make your physique look good, but you can’t simply do that overnight, can you? In this case, it doesn’t mean that effectance motivation is not existent. You can still achieve that after taking few steps at a time. So the higher the steps being achieved, the more motivation will be.

There are many ways to awaken effectance motivation in a person. It doesn’t have to be a task related to a particular job at the office. It could be something related to a very challenging videogame or a mobile app that required extreme visual skills. Anybody who thinks he or she has achieved the impossible can acquire effectance motivation. Thus, they are able to feel good about it and desire to do more of that stuff until they get another challenge.